Uriah Rennie: First black Premier League referee dies aged 65

Once described as the “fittest” referee in world football by former Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) chief Keith Hackett, Rennie had to abandon his first top-flight game when the floodlights failed at Pride Park.

He was added to the Fifa international list in 2000, and the PGMOL’s Select Group of professional referees the following year.

Speaking to BBC Sport in 2023, former Arsenal and England forward Ian Wright said: “I always found that when I played with him [as the referee] there was no real interaction.

“With some of the other referees, you could speak to them, have a little banter. And I think that the pressure he probably would have been under – to not have that kind of interaction with the other black players – must have been really intense, simply because of what people might say.”

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Hackett said: “He had stature and presence on the field of play and he was quite a gentleman off it. He was quiet but efficient in what he did.

“He was superbly fit. He had a black belt in one of the martial arts and I often watched him sprint, make a decision, players looking around him trying to have a go at the referee and he’d tap them on the shoulder and say ‘look I’m here, I’ve seen it’ and he would get a smile.

“He was a terrific communicator but quietly spoken, hardly ever lost his cool in any situation and understood the game really well.”

But after Rennie’s retirement in 2008, it took another 15 years for another black referee to take charge of a Premier League match, when Sam Allison was appointed to Sheffield United versus Luton Town in December 2023.

Earlier that year, the Football Association had laid out plans to increase the diversity of match officials across the footballing pyramid and wants an increase of 1,000 women referees and 1,000 black or Asian referees at all levels by 2023.

When that strategy was announced, only 3% of officials in professional football were of black or Asian ethnicity.